BALOTELLI FINED BY MANCINI

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has said that striker Mario Balotelli has been fined to the tune of £ 120,000 after his latest misdemeanour.

Mario Balotelli is regarded as one of the biggest characters in English football right now. However, good aspects of his character come about occasionally while the bizarre ones crop up on a regular basis.

The latest one came only a few weeks ago when he was pictured coming out of the strip club in Liverpool when Manchester City were set to face Bolton 36 hours later. This drew intense criticism from Roberto Mancini, who has always defended Mario Balotelli in difficult circumstances.

There have been reports that Manchester City were looking at the possibility of fining Mario Balotelli to the tune of £ 250,000. Even though this huge fine would not be a major issue for someone who earns the same amount every twice a week, Roberto Mancini thinks that it would help at least decrease the problem.

Now, he has indeed confirmed that Manchester City have fined Mario Balotelli £ 120,000. Even though Mario Balotelli was fined by Manchester City, he was an integral part of the team that won against Bolton Wanderers during the weekend.

"I spoke with Mario and gave him a fine of one week's wages for what he did. This is normal because every player should have good behaviour before the game. If we want to win tomorrow we should play very well and have good concentration for this game. Sporting Lisbon are a good team and play very good football. I played here five years ago with Inter in the Champions League and we lost. We had the same situation the day before," said Roberto Mancini. Mario Balotelli scored the second goal of the match in the 2-0 win.